


Never Surrender

by Railyard_Ghosts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blind Ignis Scientia, Cuddling & Snuggling, IgNoct, M/M, Post-Altissia (Final Fantasy XV), Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26280262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Railyard_Ghosts/pseuds/Railyard_Ghosts
Summary: Noct neglects to tell his friends what fulfilling the Prophecy really means, but Ignis has known since the day he traded his sight in Altissia. He lost Noct once again anyway -- he refuses to lose him again.
Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 13
Kudos: 55





	Never Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for Ostelan of the Chocobros Discord server, who shares my Ignoct headcanon almost word for word. I also want to give special thanks to my favorite enablers: Alex W., Stevie, ElizabeththeArchangel, and Luddleston. Assorted thanks also go to the rest of the thirsty bitches who keep feeding my ego on Discord.
> 
> If you would like a soundtrack, go check out The Cruxshadows - Citadel/Never Surrender.
> 
> Enjoy!

The Crystal was not made to house human bodies. It was made to eat them and, with time, fully consume and kill them. ‘Blessing’ from Bahamut indeed. 

He’d been spared the sight of Noctis being sucked into the damned thing, but not the crack in Gladio’s voice when he spoke or the way Prompto sobbed at its foundation. They put on brave faces those first few days, but Gladio grew quieter and quieter the longer Noct was gone, and Prompto was shaken in the liminal spaces between sleep. They made it back to Lucis in one piece, as one party, but someone was missing – and the long night was coming. 

Then word reached that Noct was in Hammerhead and damn the consequences, damn the light, damn the sun, damn every god that dragged them into this, and fuck the prophecy. They would not take Noctis away from him again. 

There were less than twenty glaives left in all of Lucis, and ten of them were in the Crown City; the rest were in Lestallum fighting daemons, working with hunters, and restoring the light. Ten was enough; ten was too many. 

And all other ten were sighted, yet could not see. 

The King of Light’s return speech was invigorating, but Ignis hung towards the back where he knew Noctis wouldn’t look or see him; he’d focus on the others, on giving them hope, on lighting the fires in them using what remained of his own. They cheered, because they didn’t know what the prophecy meant. None of them did. No one except him, and only because Pryna showed him the day Altissia fell. Even if they did, he thought they might still celebrate; the needs of many outweighed the needs of a few, did it not? It was something heartless he might’ve said years ago. 

Yet here, now, he wanted to take Noct by the hand and sprint away with him into the night. He wanted to leave it all behind. And if it meant leaving Gladio and Prompto, then so be it. 

He would not lose Noctis again; not the Crystal, not to Ardyn, not the Light, not to the gods. Not to anyone or anything. 

Ignis sat heavily on the edge of his cot. The remaining Glaives gave up the musty little room for their King and his personal guards to rest. He thought he should be thankful, but after ten years of scraping, searching, digging, and fading from hope to despair, Ignis found he couldn’t care about privacy anymore; he couldn’t see anyway, but he liked to imagine the other three were glad to get out of everyone’s view every so often. 

Behind him, Noct was asleep. Gladio and Prompto were on patrol. And he wondered if they ran now … how long would it take to breach the city gates and disappear? 

Ignis let himself frown at the thought and removed his visor. He rubbed his remaining eye. Light disappeared as his hand neared, then reappeared when taken away. The other side of his face around the eyesocket atrophied long ago; he could barely feel or move those muscles anymore, and no light shone through the skin. That eye was truly well and gone, burnt right out of his skull – eaten by the Ring – and the other just sensitive. 

He put his glasses back on, and turned towards the sleeping body behind him. 

Noct was always a deep sleeper, but now his sleep sounded different. Or maybe it was just the lack of sight. 

Ignis touched his side. Beneath his dress shirt and under his clothes, the King was thin. They were all thin really, but the rest of them were starving. They didn’t have a magic rock chomping at their bodies. He ran his hand up Noct’s side, feeling the sharp jut of narrow hips, a shallow collapse where his middle used to be soft, and his ribs were exposed well enough that he could easily lay his fingers between them. 

Noct’s breathing changed, followed by a shuff of fabric. Ignis stilled, then a hand closed over his, and he followed the gentle pull forward. He lay down on the cot against Noct’s back and fitted against him like he’d done a thousand times before, tangling their legs and knees and ankles together and tucking the smaller body against him. Noct wore nothing more than his dress shirt and slacks and he smelled entirely like himself; raw, exposed skin, dried sweat, old dried blood, and very distantly of Galdin’s rough, salty sea. Ignis almost thought he smelled wet stone in his hair too – a very old, very faded scent of the Citadel. 

Or maybe he was wishing – daydreaming of those days long ago when they fell asleep and woke up like this. When the worst problem on Eos was Noct beginning to have anxiety attacks and they’d lay together just like this, waiting for them to go away; when he suspected it was not always anxiety as much as a desire to be held. 

Ignis touched the opening of Noct’s shirt; he found more skin. And he traced it, following his King’s sternum from clavicles to solar plexus. 

And he thought about that _fucking_ Crystal. 

“I don’t want you to go,” Ignis whispered into the musty room – into the shapeless, formless body in front of him that he knew was Noct. 

Noct’s breathing was steady against his chest. Controlled. “I have to,” he whispered back, equally strained. Equally reluctant. “I have to bring back the light. There’s no other way.” 

“Fuck the light.” 

Noct stilled. Ignis pressed his scarred cheek into his King’s shoulderblade. 

“I will not lose you again, Noct. I lost you to that Crystal already. I will not hand you over to the gods to be sacrificed for what they’ve done to us. This isn’t your fault. This isn’t our fault. It was never humanity’s fault.” 

He felt Noct’s breathing slow; he swallowed. And Ignis squeezed his middle, listening to the rush of air through his lungs. 

“We will find a way out of this darkness and you will see the dawn with me, whatever it takes. You will not be theirs to sacrifice.” 

Still Noct’s breath was slow and even; measured even. He didn’t say anything for a long time, and Ignis did nothing but hold him and breathe him in. It was the closest he’d ever get to seeing his face. 

Finally, Noct shifted and Ignis lifted his arms and untangled their limbs to let him move. When he settled again, it was in another old, familiar position; now Ignis lay half on his back with the other, slightly-smaller man half on top of him, face pressed into the column of his throat, a leg over his waist and an arm over his ribs. He felt light and thin – too light, too thin, because the Crystal wasn’t meant to house a human body. It only existed to consume it. 

Ignis tangled his hand into what he imagined was dark hair, and rubbed his King’s skull like he used to do. Noct hummed, settled, and squeezed him around the middle. 

“So,” he said, lashes fluttering. “Where do we start?”


End file.
